Ever since court fines and fees rose in popularity as a funding mechanism for local criminal justice systems in the 1980s, the advocates for their removal have been scarce.
But, of late, more advocates have risen to propose cutting those fines and fees across the country.
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Chief Medical Advisor to the President Dr. Anthony Fauci will be deposed alongside nine other federal officials as part of an ongoing lawsuit brought by a pair of Republican state attorneys general alleging that the federal government colluded with social media companies to suppress protected free speech about COVID-19, according to a court order granting the deposition request.
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A California university said it will stop sending student teachers to a school district that banned the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT), according to a statement from the school district.
California State University Fullerton will not be placing new student teachers at Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District in Sacramento, California, because they believe the school district cannot best train the education students who are trained in social justice, tenets of CRT and gender theories, according to an Oct. 17 statement by the school district. The Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School Board approved a resolution in April that prohibits teaching CRT, or the teaching that one race is superior to another.
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A court granted an administrative stay against canceling any debt under President Joe Biden’s federal student loan forgiveness program Friday.
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals made the order at plaintiffs’ request over Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina’s lawsuit, which argues the Biden administration’s mass debt cancellation effort is unconstitutional. The court set the stay to expire when it rules on an injunction against the cancellation policy, giving the administration until Monday at 5 p.m. CT to respond.
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Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel, Atlas Shrugged, contains a message of hope for all who look to the invincible juggernaut of state power. She writes, “The great oak tree had stood on a hill over the Hudson . . . for hundreds of years . . . it was a thing that nothing could change or threaten . . . One night, lightning struck the oak tree . . . The trunk was only an empty shell; its heart had rotted away long ago; there was nothing inside-just a thin gray dust that was being dispersed by the whim of the faintest wind.”
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The West Tennessee Drug Task Force (WTDTF) found over $200 million worth of fentanyl in Shelby County on Thursday.
WTDTF shared a post on Facebook saying, “The investigation led to the discovery of 22 pounds of fentanyl and the arrest of three Kentucky men. This amount of fentanyl is enough to overdose the population of Shelby County nine times over. Fetanyl and fentanyl derived pills are deadly! Don’t even try it once! The agent who made the stop is assigned to the task force by Sheriff Garrett of Haywood County.”
The West Tennessee Drug Task Force shared a post on Facebook saying, “The investigation led to the discovery of 22 pounds of fentanyl and the arrest of three Kentucky men. This amount of fentanyl is enough to overdose the population of Shelby County nine times over. Fetanyl and fentanyl derived pills are deadly! Don’t even try it once! The agent who made the stop is assigned to the task force by Sheriff Garrett of Haywood County.”
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Democratic control of the U.S. Senate and Republican control of at least one Ohio U.S. Senate seat remains a tossup as the Nov. 8 general election creeps closer.
The most recent Suffolk University and USA Today poll shows Democrat Tim Ryan and Republican J.D. Vance in a dead heat, keeping with poll numbers from a variety of organizations over the past month.
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A Michigan politician talked about how to boost electric vehicle adoption in a brief chat sponsored by General Motors and hosted by Axios.
Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Ann Arbor, Michigan’s 12th Congressional District member who serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, touted subsidies via the Inflation Reduction Act and said that EVs are the “vehicle of the future.”
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Attorney General Jason Miyares said he’s joining 18 other attorneys general led in an investigation into several major banks for their involvement in the United Nations Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA).
“The U.N’s Net-Zero Banking Alliance, which includes American companies, punishes Virginia farmers and Virginia companies that deal with fossil fuel-related activities,” Miyares said in a press release. “Virginians are not subject to U.N. business standards. That’s why I’ve joined a coalition of attorney generals investigating six major American banks for ceding authority to a foreign body.”
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Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich and 18 other attorneys general served six of the largest American banks this past week with civil investigative demands, similar to a subpoena. The demands ask for documents related to the banks’ involvement with the United Nations’ Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), which requires member banks to set emissions reduction targets in their lending and investment portfolios to reach net zero by 2050.
“American banks should never put political agendas ahead of the secure retirement of their clients,” Brnovich said in a statement. “These financial institutions are entrusted with protecting a different type of green.”
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Homicides in Philadelphia have been stubbornly high compared to just a few years ago, and elected officials have started to look for answers in other cities.
While some crime has risen in a number of cities in recent years, few cities have seen a worse rise in murder than Philadelphia. A recent WalletHub comparison of per capita murder rates since 2020 found that Philadelphia ranked seventh of the 50 largest cities in America.
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Minnesota is distributing the second half of $900,000 from its general fund and an account of the Game and Fish Fund to encourage children to experience outdoor recreational activities, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources announced Thursday.
The 2021 Minnesota Legislature appropriated the funding from the state’s General Fund and the Heritage Enhancement Account of the Game and Fish Fund to continue the work of the No Child Left Inside grants program. The 2019 Minnesota Legislature funded the grants and legislators in 2021 added more funding, the DNR said.
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The Cato Institute gave Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp a B on its 2022 Fiscal Policy Report Card of governors, citing his tax cuts as a reason for the grade.
The libertarian think tank also gave Kemp, a Republican, a B on its 2020 report card. The analysis grades governors on their fiscal policies from a limited-government viewpoint; the higher the grade, the more a governor has cut taxes and spending.
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Wisconsin’s race for governor is the most expensive in the country, and the race for U.S. Senate isn’t exactly cheap either. All of that money is being spent to convince less than 2% of voters in the state.
Reince Priebus, the former head of both the Wisconsin Republican Party and the Republican National Committee, said there are just a few thousand truly independent voters in Wisconsin.
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With just over two weeks until Arizona’s General Election, Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lakes continues her flow of TV advertisements, this time addressing the fentanyl crisis plaguing Arizona.
“I have met with too many grieving families to just stand by while our open border allows millions of fentanyl pills to flood Arizona’s communities and take the lives of our babies. Our open border may be too politically inconvenient for Katie Hobbs to talk about, but Arizona families deserve to know what their candidates are going to do to put an end to this invasion of fentanyl into our state,” Lake said in a statement shared with the Arizona Sun Times.
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A recent poll shows that, two years after a controversial presidential election with widespread allegations of voter fraud, over half of Americans still do not have confidence in the way elections are carried out in the United States.
As reported by the Associated Press, the poll by the AP and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that 52 percent of American voters say that American democracy is not working well; by contrast, just 9 percent of voters think democracy in America is working “extremely well” or “very well.” Prior to the 2020 election, only about 40 percent of Americans were confident that their votes would be counted fairly and accurately.
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Ohio has 35 percent remaining of the $5.4 billion that the U.S. Department of the Treasury allocated through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). A new tool is being used to track how the state utilizes the funds.
Advocates for Ohio’s Future, in partnership with the Ohio Poverty Law Center (OPLC), have launched a tool called the Ohio ARPA Tracker. This tracker provides up-to-date, detailed information on how Ohio spends its money.
Advocates for Ohio’s Future in partnership with the Ohio Poverty Law Center (OPLC) have launched a tool called the Ohio ARPA Tracker. This tracker provides up-to-date detailed information on how Ohio’s dollars are being spent.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has told potential investors that he will cut roughly three-quarters of Twitter’s workforce once he secures control of the company.
The firm currently employs roughly 7,500 people. Documents the Washington Post obtained indicate that Musk plans to operate the platform with approximately 2,000 employees. Musk’s purchase of Twitter could reportedly close as soon as next week.
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From Harvard to Hong Kong, stakeholder capitalism is gaining popularity at elite business schools worldwide. Followers of this trendy concept believe that a corporation, instead of primarily operating to benefit shareholders, should work to benefit all interested parties — or “stakeholders” — including suppliers, local communities, and governments. Stakeholder capitalism largely overlaps with efforts to advance so-called “environmental, social, and governance” (ESG) outcomes — a vaguely defined trio of left-wing priorities.
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Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported over 220,000 migrant encounters along the southern border in September, outpacing every other September on record, according to new agency statistics revealed Friday.
The agency clocked roughly 2.3 million migrant encounters for fiscal year 2022, shattering the previous record, and took over 2.7 million enforcement actions nationally in fiscal year 2022, up more than 41% over fiscal year 2021, according to its data. CBP said 19% of the September southern border encounters involved people encountered at least one other time in the past 12 months.
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